I've just tried to use the publisher extension to upload (i.e. stage) my signals, but I've encountered a time related issue. It was approximately 8 pm New York time, so well after the market had closed but when I went to send the signals I got a warning message saying the signals would be published immediately because it was after 9:30am. I thus decided not to upload the signals using the extension and had to enter them manually via the website.

Something that may or may not be relevant is that at 8pm New York time my computer's time clock was 1am (i.e. the next day) in my local time as I am from outside of the USA. I'd appreciate if you would look into fixing this because I would like to do the uploading of my signals for the next day a few hours after the market closes.

I second TechTraders request. Specifically, I think it would make sense to enable index, subindex, fx and commoditiy ETF's and also interesting ETNs like the VIX-related products (VXX, XIV, VIXY, VIIX, VXZ and so forth). They are all traded stock-like, so it would make no difference probably.

If we are sticking with S&P list for now. My next suggestions would be to add the S&P 400 midcaps and the S&P 600 small caps. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 don't have the greatest volatility for short term trading. They are good if you have a buy and hold system but if you are paying a monthly subscription for a stock service you expect to have buy and sell signals on a regular basis.

In the next several weeks, we'll update the List of Symbols page to break out stocks and ETFs into two lists and also to include a symbol request policy. Personally, I'm not at all in favor of adding leveraged ETFs (such as some suggested above) for EOD trading. I think they're fine for day traders, but it's a democracy and discussion that we'll have.

WealthSignals is still in Beta and during this phase we'll keep the stock list limited to the union of the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100. We'll add liquid, non-leveraged ETFs with histories extended back to at least September 2007 if requested by trading system authors. (Liquid = 5-day average volume consistently above 500,000 shares for the last 6 months.)

We're listening and we appreciate all the comments which will help shape the service in the future!

While my strategy includes leveraged ETFs (SSO and SDS), I see the logic behind avoiding these leveraged ETFs for a general signal consumption, however, given many trading accounts (especially in retirement accts) are not allowed for shorts, it will be logical to have some of the non-leveraged ETFs such as SH to take the short side of SPY, for example, etc.

I would still want to see SSO and SDS supported, maybe for users who acknowledge they understand the risks involved with leveraged funds, similar to how Fidelity is asking to acknowledge before allowing to trade them.

ETFs tend to reduce wild stock price swings. They are ready made basket of stocks in all categories and can serve as volatility damping instruments or strategy enhancers.

Any Wealth-Lab Signal short term trader needs to go for momentum stocks, and a lot of ETFs can help in this regard. Here are the advantages I see:

1. ETFs are on the spot tradable mutual funds that most often can comprise 30 to 100 stocks or more.2. ETFs help diversify stock holdings and can target investment sectors.3. Even if one stock in an ETF drops to zero, it has just a minor impact on the portfolio.4. ETFs are easily tradable. More than 100 ETFs trade daily on average more than 750,000 shares based on their 3 months average.5. ETFs help diversify risk for the simple reason that they are the averages of their representative holdings.6. ETFs in their own right can help design better trading strategies will less volatility.7. ETFs act as sector averages: financial, resources, real estate, …. etc.

It should be reasonable to request that any, and I do mean any ETF that trades more than 750,000 shares a day on a 3 month average basis be included in the tradable assets in Wealth-Lab Signals, that these ETFs be leveraged or not. It should be up to the script author to decide if he wants to use ETFs. After all, the author is responsible for the trading script and ultimately his/her subscribers. There should be more subscribers if authors can provide better trading systems with higher performance levels.

The point being that the purpose of setting up these portfolios is to achieve the highest possible long term return and I think that there are many ways to achieve this. However, any portfolio wishing to trade actively needs a database of stocks and/or ETFs that can not only move all the time but also have sufficient volume to also support all strategy subscribers.

I would say it is up to the author of the trading strategy to determine if he wants to trade ETFs or not, if he wants to short them or not. There is no obligation to use ETFs, but I do think they should be made available with only condition that their 3 months daily average volume exceed 500,000 shares which is the same restriction I would apply to all tradable stocks in such a scenario.

First and foremost, there is a need to have sufficient tradable volume such that any subscriber to the signals can also execute the suggested trades with as little slippage as possible, and that can only be achieved if there is sufficient available volume on the books.

I would even consider participating should the top 150 ETFs by volume were made available for trading strategy authors since my trading methods require over-diversification; and the top 150 ETFs can certainly help in providing that.

The rationale behind excluding leveraged ETFs was that Fidelity customers have to sign special agreements to trade each one of these leveraged instruments.

Now only 2 conditions remain: the volume and history requirements. As you don't seem to disagree about the trading volume for ETFs, kindly let me explain the data history rule too. The sufficient trading history for ETF (since 2007) requirement is needed to build a reliable backtest spanning different phases of market behavior, and an uploaded backtest is required for any system going to WealthSignals' TSSN (i.e. whose author is accepting subscribers).

I see your point. I am not here to dictate your corporate policies. I have my own restrictions, one of which is to never put my programs on somebody else's machine. You invite comment and input, and I was making a suggestion, just something to consider.

A strategy developer, especially in the stock market, needs all the tools he can get. Proper testing of trading strategies is certainly one of them. But there is also the selection process of which stocks or ETFs to trade and which trading strategy should be applied. And back testing is still the best tool at hand to simulation all the trading scenarios we may have.

My strategies are just trend-following scripts where I design mostly holding functions, so they have a long term perspective written all over them. And to enhance this type of strategy, well placed leveraged ETFs can help. It's an easy way to leveraged an account without really leveraging or needing margin (especially, when the software does not allow it). For instance, XLF is fine, but FAS and FAZ, even if they are about 5 years old can provide more opportunities to make a difference. The underlying ETF, the x1 such as XLF have been there for some time, and adding its x2 or x3 to your pool selection only represent other opportunities for those that might, and I would stress might, want to use them. All leveraged ETFs have a x1 on which they are based.

IMHO, it should be the developer’s trading programs, trading philosophy and objectives that should dictate what he/she can or can not trade.

You guys have made good arguments for allowing leveraged ETFs, and, considering we don't have a date constraint for stocks, it probably doesn't follow to have one for ETFs. We'll revisit this and come up with a larger list of liquid ETFs. Suggestions are always welcomed.

To get started on this, we'll be adding the following 85 ETFs. They were selected based from the 100 highest volume and largest assets lists from etfdb.com (which by the way has a very nice drill-down screener for finding ETFs for just about any purpose) and then filtered for the 6-month average volume criteria.

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